http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3469971

Remember this quote from Earl Woods? Remember what he predicted for his son, Tiger? "He's the bridge between the East and the West," Woods once told Sports Illustrated. "I don't know yet exactly what form this will take. But he is the Chosen One. He'll have the power to impact nations. Not people. Nations. The world is just getting a taste of his power."

That quote was met with derision, and it's still dismissed as fatherly hubris, but maybe now it's time for Earl Woods' prediction to come true. Maybe now it's time for Tiger Woods to impact nations. Maybe now it's time for the greatest golfer in the world to leave the PGA Tour and start his own circuit.

We're not talking about a few stray PGA Tour events, like this week's AT&T National at Congressional, hosted by Tiger. We're talking about an international schedule of new tournaments that could grow both his brand and the game.

Woods is the first athlete in a long time—maybe ever—who doesn't need his league. He is the Oprah of sports—the most likeable athlete alive, according to a Harris poll, and the most successful. He ranks behind only Winfrey in Forbes' latest list of most powerful celebrities, with $115 million in yearly income. And so much of the PGA Tour's financial success comes directly from him. The Tour negotiated a $1-billion TV deal after Woods won his first Masters, in 1997, and total annual Tour purse has nearly quadrupled in the Tiger era, to north of $270 million. That's not inflation, people. Calling Woods a magnet for revenue is like calling Big Brown trainer Rick Dutrow's shirt a magnet for moisture.

"Tiger is our tour," Kenny Perry said after Woods' knee injury shelved him for the rest of the calendar year. So why not use this year's layoff to make like Justin Timberlake and go solo?

He can recruit whoever he wants to play against. The cameras follow Woods wherever he goes, and make stars out of those in his orbit. Can you name the golfer who nearly beat Woods in the U.S. Open? Sure: Rocco Mediate. We now know Rocco better than any male cyclist outside of Lance Armstrong. There was an ad in the New York Times recently celebrating Mediate for a tournament he lost! Now name the golfer who actually beat Woods and won the Masters. Much tougher, right? (It's Trevor Immelman.)

So if Woods held a handful of his own tournaments a year, all over the planet, who wouldn't want to bail on a smaller PGA event to play? When Tiger turned pro, nine Tour members earned $1 million annually in pay. A decade later, that number is 99. Don't think pro golfers aren't aware how their bread is buttered.

Woods can have IMG produce the events, and the networks would likely line up.

"TV wouldn't be the problem," says former CBS Sports president Neal Pilson. "If Tiger asked to see me, I certainly would take the meeting." And yet the PGA Tour owns Woods' likeness and image whenever he appears on a golf course. With Woods closing in on a record 18 majors, there's simply no reason all that money should leave him and go to a bunch of suits.

"All the PGA Tour is really providing is the umbrella organization," says CNBC sports business analyst Darren Rovell. "The local tournaments run themselves. The scary thing is, it's not that hard to replicate things."

This doesn't have to be a parallel tour, forcing other players to leave the PGA Tour as well. Think of Southwest Airlines in its infancy, starting out with a few routes, borrowing a few passengers while the hub-and-spoke behemoths trudge along. There's no limit to the potential for growth over the course of the coming years, while Woods remains in or near his prime. The Tiger Tour could eventually go public, and allow fans and others to buy stock in Woods himself.

But this is about much more than money and viability. This is about building a better life, a better game, and even a better world.

Woods must play 15 events per year to remain a PGA Tour member. There's no certainty he wishes to do that on a surgically-reconstructed knee. Even if the Tour suspends that rule just for him, what real reason does he have to play more than the four majors? He can just as easily drop out of the Tour and play only the Grand Slam events—where he's exempt for years (or for life) based on past victories—plus a couple of others that help his charity. (One example: the Deutsche Bank Championship, which benefits the Tiger Woods Foundation.) So he can chase Jack Nicklaus' record of 18 major championships and build a new legacy at the same time.

More importantly, Woods can undo the PGA Tour's vice grip. The Tour has excelled as golf's Microsoft, building its own business while foreign tours struggle to compete. Seve Ballesteros dropped out of the PGA circuit in the '80s because of the 15-tournament minimum, and a generation of European golf pros followed his lead, torn between the opportunities of the PGA Tour and their loyalty to family and homeland (and appearance fees).

Former top-ranked golfer Greg Norman suggested a world tour in the early '90s, only to be snubbed by commissioner Tim Finchem, who later proposed the World Golf Championships. Even that fizzled, going from international in theory to American in practice. A Tiger Tour could finally grow world golf to a new level.

Imagine if Woods played the four majors—none of which are run by the PGA Tour— plus six more on six different continents every year. Imagine the quality of courses he could choose in places like Dubai and China. Imagine the clamor among nations that would attend the bidding for Tour stops. You think international cities fall over themselves for the Olympics or places on the F1 circuit? Just wait.

That's where Woods could impact people, and nations. More than a decade after his arrival on the professional golf scene, the number of minorities at the top level of the game has not risen dramatically, if at all. With the exception of a very few young upstarts like Anthony Kim and veterans like Vijay Singh, golf is still mostly white, and mostly filled with fat cats. A Tiger Tour might change that simply by showcasing Woods in more countries. And the added money from negotiating his own TV contracts could go straight to buying starter sets and greens fees for hundreds of thousands of children all over the world. Or Woods could simply build schools and roads and irrigation fields. Bill Gates left the corporate world to improve the lives of millions, and Tiger Woods has more charisma and more star power. The only real difference is that Woods doesn't run his own show. Yet.

Goodbye PGA Tour. Hello world.

Eric Adelson is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. You can reach him at eric.adelson@espn3.com.

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TW - The leading cause of goose bumps…

no. its not about tiger. its about appearance fees.

He may not start his own world tour, but i feel like he's going to do something different/big in the near future...maybe invest in some other sports franchise.

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TW - The leading cause of goose bumps…

scrappy1:

But he is the Chosen One.

What's his middle name... Neo? 

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scrappy1:

He may not start his own world tour, but i feel like he's going to do something different/big in the near future...maybe invest in some other sports franchise.

i could see him becoming part-owner of the orlando magic, because he's such a big fan, but i can't see him investing just for the sake of investing, i think he'd want to/have to be involved, not merely a figurehead.

Considering the ecomomic impact Tiger has on the PGA Tour in the form of increased sponsor interests and higher purses, maybe starting his own tour or spending more time in Europe may encourage the PGA Tour and its players to better appreciate Tiger.  Take, for example, the AT&T Tournament absence of high ranking players like Vijay, Garcia, Els, Mickilson, and the like.  If those players could be sent back in time to days prior to Tiger's arrival on the Tour when the winner's purse was $200K instead of $1M today then maybe more regard would credited to Mr. Woods.  Change of course may be needed to drive the point home in the hearts, minds and pocket books of those non-believers.  Instead of starting a costly tour, Tiger should spend half his time in Europe developing that Tour at the expense of the spoiled American Tour.  In so doing, American golf sponsorship would be concentrated on events played by Tiger.  Meanwhile, European events would become more meaningful as evidenced by increased fan attendence, sponsorship, and purses.  Maybe more Europeans could become fat off of Tiger and more Americans become financially starved.  Ah, but, this is only fantasy because no one actually gets what is deserved. 

hbbain:

Considering the ecomomic impact Tiger has on the PGA Tour in the form of increased sponsor interests and higher purses, maybe starting his own tour or spending more time in Europe may encourage the PGA Tour and its players to better appreciate Tiger.  Take, for example, the AT&T Tournament absence of high ranking players like Vijay, Garcia, Els, Mickilson, and the like.  If those players could be sent back in time to days prior to Tiger's arrival on the Tour when the winner's purse was $200K instead of $1M today then maybe more regard would credited to Mr. Woods.  Change of course may be needed to drive the point home in the hearts, minds and pocket books of those non-believers.  Instead of starting a costly tour, Tiger should spend half his time in Europe developing that Tour at the expense of the spoiled American Tour.  In so doing, American golf sponsorship would be concentrated on events played by Tiger.  Meanwhile, European events would become more meaningful as evidenced by increased fan attendence, sponsorship, and purses.  Maybe more Europeans could become fat off of Tiger and more Americans become financially starved.  Ah, but, this is only fantasy because no one actually gets what is deserved. 

I so agree with this....and i wish Tiger would do exactly that. 

But really, the rankings are a joke.  I mean, Vijay, Els, and Mickelson have been made out to be more than they really are...thanks to the media.  All three of these guys 'used to' be worth talking about, but the media now really needs to stop making rock stars out of these guys unless they can step up their game.  Prime example - Phil at the US Open - all the talk about a Tiger/Phil showdown.

To be honest, the AT&T field is not weak.  I'd rather see guys like Anthony Kim and Steve Stricker play than see Vijay, Els, and Mickelson consistently miss a bunch of putts.

All i now is...i don't care how far the game has come because of Tiger, the other guys better start trying to sell the game a lot better than they have been, because once Tiger moves on to bigger things, the purse may end up back to 100-200k.

 

 

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TW - The leading cause of goose bumps…

hbbain:

Considering the ecomomic impact Tiger has on the PGA Tour in the form of increased sponsor interests and higher purses, maybe starting his own tour or spending more time in Europe may encourage the PGA Tour and its players to better appreciate Tiger.  Take, for example, the AT&T Tournament absence of high ranking players like Vijay, Garcia, Els, Mickilson, and the like.  If those players could be sent back in time to days prior to Tiger's arrival on the Tour when the winner's purse was $200K instead of $1M today then maybe more regard would credited to Mr. Woods.  Change of course may be needed to drive the point home in the hearts, minds and pocket books of those non-believers.  Instead of starting a costly tour, Tiger should spend half his time in Europe developing that Tour at the expense of the spoiled American Tour.  In so doing, American golf sponsorship would be concentrated on events played by Tiger.  Meanwhile, European events would become more meaningful as evidenced by increased fan attendence, sponsorship, and purses.  Maybe more Europeans could become fat off of Tiger and more Americans become financially starved.  Ah, but, this is only fantasy because no one actually gets what is deserved. 

the checks have already been cashed, and the argument would be yes the purses are higher, but they still had to go out and earn them. tiger just didn't give it to them. he enabled the higher purses by attracting a large draw.

you now have the fedex cup on the pga tour and the race to dubai on the european tour, in effect trump cards attempting to minimize/reverse the tiger effect. the european tour does just fine thank you, don't forget they allow appearance fees (pay to play) as well, something the pga tour forbids.  

scrappy1:

All i now is...i don't care how far the game has come because of Tiger, the other guys better start trying to sell the game a lot better than they have been, because once Tiger moves on to bigger things, the purse may end up back to 100-200k.

it doesn't affect the top players at all either way. who it does affect are those players fighting to keep their cards from year to year. for example, somebody could've earned a half million dollars on tour last year and is not playing on tour this year because they lost their card. the 125th player on tour last year earned almost $800,000. i'm guessing if the purses go back down, it'll give more players a chance to stay on tour, which may actually be better for the tour.

If he starts his own tour the first thing he should do is remove the $17,000 in fees one has to pay to get through the various qualifying rounds for the PGA tour.  I can't imagine how many low income people have not had the ability to earn a living on the tour because they can't afford the qualifying buy-ins.  I know one of them... 

A Tiger tour that allows players based on a handicap to enter into qualifying tournaments for free, or to earn exemptions based on income.  Do something that allows the good players a chance to showcase their skills without having to find a money tree in order to earn some.  It's the Tiger thing to do. 

Oh, and I hope he does in fact start his own tour.   

sapient:

If he starts his own tour the first thing he should do is remove the $17,000 in fees one has to pay to get through the various qualifying rounds for the PGA tour.  I can't imagine how many low income people have not had the ability to earn a living on the tour because they can't afford the qualifying buy-ins.  I know one of them... 

A Tiger tour that allows players based on a handicap to enter into qualifying tournaments for free, or to earn exemptions based on income.  Do something that allows the good players a chance to showcase their skills without having to find a money tree in order to earn some.  It's the Tiger thing to do. 

Oh, and I hope he does in fact start his own tour.   

imo, if a player is good enough, somebody or a group of somebodies will sponsor him/her. here's a good article on the subject...

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_22/b3935134.htm

Backing A Tour Pro
Going along for the ride has its ups and downs. Here's how it works

Who hasn't dreamed of being a professional golfer -- raking in hundreds of thousands of dollars on manicured courses in warm, sunny weather, playing a game we love? But when we know that dream will never become a reality, sponsoring a prospective tour player might be the next-best thing. There are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of young players -- the kid of a club member, a top-ranked amateur, or an assistant in the golf shop -- who have the potential for success on a professional tour. There are even more friends and acquaintances who are eager to help them along. Casual conversations in the grillroom can turn into serious discussions about financial backing, and club members have been known to construct sponsorship packages right then and there.

Some say these deals seldom work, that one side is usually unhappy. The player might do better just to borrow money from a bank. But is a bank going to provide a loan for an unproven young man or woman to play professional golf? Probably not, and that's why investors, or financial backers, have a place.

Some agreements are lucrative for the player. Others can be a stranglehold. Rarely are they windfalls for the backers. There are good stories and bad aplenty, anywhere there is a prospect for the PGA Tour or Nationwide Tour or Hooters Tour or LPGA Tour or even the Champions Tour. If you are thinking about sponsoring a player at your club, be careful. Even if you're backing the "Can't Miss Kid," you likely won't get rich, and a profit should not be your motive.

Sponsorship arrangements vary greatly, from one of the first players-for-hire, Dan Sikes, who had 50 people backing him in the 1960s, to the original sure bet, Arnold Palmer, with only one sponsor, who wanted nothing monetarily in return.

How a deal is structured
Last year, Joe Ogilvie had his first million-dollar season on the PGA Tour. When Joe was not long out of Duke University, his father, Norm, an attorney in Lancaster, Ohio, offered to give Joe the money to play golf or take him down to the bank and co-sign a loan. Joe instead decided to go with financial backers on a developmental tour.

"In 1998, we sold $2,000 shares, 23 of them, to raise $46,000," Joe says. "They were all friends of the family. My dad put the contract together and did the financials on it. The day we signed the papers we were fully funded, and I won the next week."

As part of the contract, Ogilvie promised to compete in as many Nike Tour (predecessor to the Nationwide Tour) events as he was physically and mentally able. He won the Monterrey Open in March and the Greensboro Open in June, and earned $157,812, which assured him a place on the PGA Tour the next year. Of the first $46,000 that Ogilvie won, the backers got 90 percent and he got 10 percent. For the next $46,000, there was a 50/50 split. From $92,000 to $130,000, Ogilvie got 75 percent. He kept all the money over $130,000.

Of the $157,812 in prize money won, Ogilvie received $83,912 and the backers got $73,900 for their 23 shares that cost $2,000 each, a return of $3,213 per share. "They beat the market, that's for sure," Ogilvie says. Before describing Joe's deal, Norm Ogilvie was clear on this caveat: "Any contract must comply with the security laws of the state in which it happens and the rules and regulations of the Securities and Exchange Commission."

Other young players, including Zach Johnson, Chad Campbell, Michael Clark, and Todd Hamilton, also have had financial support on their way up. "It started out as a business that developed into a friendship," says Johnson, who won a record $495,000 on the Nationwide Tour in 2003 and earned his way onto the PGA Tour. His gallery at the 2004 BellSouth Classic, there to witness a victory in his rookie year, included 10 backers from Iowa who had supported him from early on, some seeing him play professional golf for the first time.

Most sponsorship deals call for advance payments for expenses on an agreed timetable, and income splits are often 50/50. If a player falls short of repaying his advance, the unpaid balance will usually carry over to the next year, but if the player fails and quits playing tournament golf, there usually is no obligation for repayment.

"Contracts could be structured in any one of a thousand ways," says Tom Bertsch, a financial manager for IMG, which represents many tour players. "It all depends. You might have some good-natured guys who couldn't care less whether they lose $25,000. Other guys are looking for a return and, if you're a player, those are the type of guys and contracts that you really need to look at closely."

Tell that to Roger Maltbie. In his rookie year, 1975, Maltbie, now an NBC golf commentator, received $18,000 from hometown investors in San Jose for expenses, the first of a three-year sponsorship. "The relationship was terrific when things were very small," he says. Then Maltbie won twice and was chosen PGA Tour Rookie of the Year. He began to receive off-course opportunities. He started examining the contract more closely. His investors were to take half of everything. Maltbie didn't think that was right and also wanted a larger expense advance.

Maltbie won the first Memorial Tournament in May 1976. A while after that, over a game of gin rummy, he was discussing revising the deal with the managing partner of his sponsors. The conversation became intense. "The guy looked at me as squarely as he could," Maltbie recalls, "and he said, 'You're nothing but a racehorse. We've got a deal, and I expect you to live by it.' "

That struck a nerve, and Maltbie didn't hesitate to respond: "You know, I appreciate the opportunity you've given me, but what if that racehorse sits down? How much are you going to make then?" After July, Maltbie played in only two tournaments the rest of the year and was released from his contract. "In hindsight it was probably the biggest mistake I ever made," he says. "The bottom line was, I lost my edge." He was a top-25 money-winner only once again in his career.

Sponsorship for the older set
The concept of financial backers for professional golfers is as old as the post-World War II circuit, which was organized by the PGA of America. Today the PGA Tour runs the show. Dan Sikes might not have been the first to have financial backers, but he was the best-known in the early years. Says Doc Giffin, who was the tour's press secretary at the time before becoming assistant to Arnold Palmer: "The genesis of it was in the '50s, the early '60s, when we started getting players who were not club pros playing for a living. It was when we started getting the guys out of college."

Sikes had graduated from law school at the University of Florida when he arrived on the tour in the '60s. Fifty business and professional men in Jacksonville formed a profit-sharing corporation to back him, calling it "Dan's Friends Inc."

In contrast, Palmer did not have formal backing. He started out in 1955 with a cash gift of less than $5,000 from Harry Saxman, whose family owned Latrobe Steel and Latrobe Country Club, where Palmer's father, Deacon, was employed as greenkeeper and club professional. Saxman's only payback was outings with Palmer, including what would be considered the trip of a lifetime, to the 1960 British Open at St. Andrews with Arnie, his wife, Winnie, and Deacon.

Then there is the curious case of Jerry McGee, who played in 13 events on the Champions Tour last year. He met his financial backer in 1966 while he was an assistant pro in Danville, Pa. He won four tournaments in the 1970s. After the deal was over, the investor took McGee to court, asking for more than $100,000, the equivalent of prize money that would have put McGee in the yearly top 20 back then. When McGee won on all 12 counts, which cost him $20,000 to defend, the man said to McGee while still in court, "I hope there are no hard feelings."

Now 61 and a cancer survivor, McGee says he still receives an occasional telephone call from the backer. "Just like nothing ever happened," he says. "And to this day I still thank him for giving me the opportunity. I don't know if I would have played the tour without him."

Today on the Champions Tour there is a new kid in town: the "Beer Man," as Mark Johnson is known, because he drove a Budweiser truck for 18 years before turning to professional golf. He began to prepare for the senior tour six years ago. Now 51, Johnson led the Champions Tour qualifying school last autumn and already has a victory this year.

Johnson had an initial five-year sponsorship during which he played the Buy.com Tour, the Canadian Tour, and various minor-league tours. He has now signed on for another five years. His sponsors are his former employer, H. Olson Distributing in Barstow, Calif., which has kept him on the payroll and provides insurance, and six individuals. These sponsors are paid percentages after Johnson reaches certain thresholds. Like Ogilvie's deal, as Johnson makes more money, his backers' percentages decrease.

How much do tour pros need?
Players once required investors well into their PGA Tour careers. That is no longer true. Minor circuits such as the Hooters Tour are where players start out with financial backers. Many if not most players will also need backing for the next steppingstone: the Nationwide Tour. For women, there is the Futures Tour before going on to the LPGA Tour. While you can figure it costs a minimum of $150,000 a year to play the PGA Tour, $100,000 for the Champions Tour, $75,000 for the LPGA Tour (where players often stay in private homes), and $55,000 for the Nationwide Tour, on the Hooters Tour, it's considerably less. A season consists of about 22 events primarily in the Southeast, with entry fees of $850 per week. Figure the total expense -- travel, meals, motels, caddies -- for a 22-week season at $35,000. This is staying at Motel 6, not the Ritz, by the way, and eating at, well, Hooters.

That's where an investor comes in, and if a player is really lucky, it is someone like Frank Fuhrer. A prominent name in business and sports in Pittsburgh, Fuhrer is an experienced financial backer. "I've probably helped a dozen golfers over the years," Fuhrer said. "I do it for one reason, and one reason only: I just try to help them. I'm sure there are some people who do it from more of a business standpoint. These golfers came to me, and to be honest, I didn't want to turn them down. I gave them varying amounts of money, probably as little as $5,000 to as much as $50,000."

Fuhrer is not sure he has their gratitude. "Most of the time when they owe you money, they're not real friendly with you anymore," he says. But Fuhrer continues to lend. "I'm doing less of it though. They don't even recognize you after they get your money, a year or two later. You can't get an accounting from some of them. But I don't like to blame a future kid for one that did something in the past."

Now that's the kind of backer any young player would love to have.

Twit,

I think that article is highly relevant to the "obvious winner" out there.  However it's not as easy when you're the guy who would shoot 2 under par on your good days to find a backer to give you a shot at qualifying knowing you've got only about a 50/50 chance.  I'm not talking about the next Tiger Woods here, I'm talking about guys who could conceivably make a living at it, but are on the bubble.  There are tons of players who could play on a tour and compete yet don't have the money to do it, and that's a fact I can attest to.

 

If you can only shoot 2 under par on your good days, then you're not good enough to be on a Tour, even the Nationwide Tour. I know there are people who can be on a Tour but can't find sponsors, but a guy who can only shoot 2 under as his best round isn't one of them. Just because you're a scratch golfer doesn't mean you can play golf on Tour. I think people don't realize just how good these guys are.

He could not! Even though I want him to. i think he will start his own tournament though!